


Past Tense Motivation

by Leonawriter



Series: FF7 minifics [2]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Found Family, Gen, Introspection, Moving On, Post-Dirge of Cerberus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-22
Updated: 2018-01-22
Packaged: 2019-03-07 23:33:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13445751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leonawriter/pseuds/Leonawriter
Summary: Genesis spends a lot of time thinking, now - and wondering about who he was, and who he wanted to be, compared to who and where he is now.





	Past Tense Motivation

_I used to want to save the world,_  Genesis mused. _And before that, I wanted to…_

His thoughts trailed off, remembering his anger-driven desires to see the world _burn_ , to change everything into his own image, because if he could not survive in it, then _neither would anyone else._

Before even that, he wondered if he’d ever even spared a thought for the _world_ , whether that was for saving it or damning it. He probably hadn’t. He’d been too caught up wanting to be the _hero_ , without actually knowing what that _meant._

 _You can have it_ , he remembered Sephiroth saying - one of those few memories of the man from back before everything had gone beyond the point of no return, a clear memory, and one that mocked him.

He wondered if Sephiroth had known what a ‘hero’ was either. It would be a bitter truth indeed if the man who had fallen so far, had understood better back then than he had.

_Now… I wonder if it’s that simple. I say things like ‘hero’ and ‘to save the world’, and yet the roles I’ve found myself in have never… quite aligned._

That, and someone else always tended to get there before him. Sephiroth had been lauded as a hero by Shinra, and despite Genesis believing himself to be more worthy of the title and role, Zack had fitted it the most, down to the last. 

He had been unaware of anything going on above the surface - or eve outside of his small bubble of awareness - up just a pitiful few years too late to help _save the world,_ too, that having been left to people who were ill-equipped to do anything of the sort, with major disadvantages at that. And yet, they had succeeded, while he had been locked away, sealed in the small cave with the lake.

It was enough to make any man wonder what their purpose in life could be, when all else had been stripped away.

A call from below pulled him out of his thoughts.

“Hello up there! Honestly, with all the time you spend sitting on our rafters and roofs, people are going to start wondering if we’ve got a black-winged angel as well as that white statue over there, you know.”

_Tifa._

It was taking them time, to come to terms with Genesis’ presence - and that of his wing, after whatever it was that Sephiroth had apparently done. But once the initial shock had worn off, he had somehow become less a constant looming threat, and more…

“Come on down! We’re just about to start making dinner.”

It had only been a few months. He could hardly say _part of the family,_  since the term _family_  had bad connotations for him even if he thought it matched the situation. But certainly a welcome face, despite the instinctive flinch or wince that he could still see in the woman’s eyes as he jumped off, wing spread in order to slow and steady his fall into something more graceful.

“There you are. You’re a lot like Cloud, you know. You spend so much time lost in thought that I sometimes wonder if you’d know the way back without help.”

When the world needed to be saved, Genesis would be there - and likely, so would Tifa, and Cloud, too - and he would do what he could in the memory of those he had failed in the past. 

Zack. Angeal. _Sephiroth._

Yet in the meantime, what he knew for sure was that there was good food to be eaten, conversation to be had over the new construction sites that were going up, as well as how Marlene and Denzel were doing in school and the fact that Cloud would be coming back from his latest delivery soon.

_My soul, corrupted by vengeance, hath endured torment… to find the end of the journey in my own salvation._

**Author's Note:**

> This one's actually the reason I'm putting them up now, because the way I portray Genesis in the fic 'Numbers' owes a lot to this thing here. Especially the way he has an uneasy sense of found family with these people. Not that he'll call it that, but it is what it is.
> 
> And a hero's always gotta have somewhere to come back home to.
> 
> Also fits in with the Sombre Morrow original timeline, somewhere or other.


End file.
